Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Long, long ago (circa 2002) in a galaxy far, far away (better known as Clinton Township, Michigan) I received a book for Christmas. It was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling. (Yeah. I'm an American. We're not smart enough to know what a Philosopher's Stone is.) It was a book I had sworn to never read. I mean, it was kid stuff, right? What adult was going to read it? There was only one problem: I was dating my ex-wife at the time and she loved it. She wanted me to read it so she gave it to me. I wasn't working at the time so I couldn't tell her I was too busy, so I read it.

I loved it. I had stayed over at her place one night and started reading it the next day while she was at work. By the time she got home that night I was halfway through Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I was hooked. It was that good. At the time, only books one through four were out. I read them all in a matter of days. I saw the first movie at the second run movie theater that only charged a dollar fifty that weekend. I saw the second movie a week later and paid full price. I attended the release parties for the next three novels sans children. I got a few weird looks but I got all three books on release night so it was worth it.

I have since read every HP book at least twice and watched the movies with my kids more time than I would care to count. I'm actually pretty upset with myself that I didn't read these sooner. When I split with the ex one of the things I made sure to take were the HP books. I could live without that woman but I needed those books. Yeah, they're that good.

I've heard a lot of literati types hate on the Harry Potter series. Apparently the fact that the books are popular means that they're not true literature. You know what? Fuck that attitude. I mean that.

Rowling's works have popularized an entire genre of fiction. Before Harry Potter, Young Adult fiction was a joke. Now it's one of the fastest growing areas in all of publishing and every YA author that gets published owes a debt to Mrs. Rowling. She wrote the works that opened the way.

J.K. Rowling is literally the mist influential English language author of the last century. Only Tolkien comes close and for the same reason. Tolkien revitalized the fantasy genre. What separates Rowling from Tolkien is that Rowling popularized a genre that had never been big where Tolkien brought back an old genre.

She did it not by kissing liberal ass with message fiction but by telling an awesome story with awesome characters. Rowling's characters are quirky and strange but they are believable in their actions and motivations. The conflicts escalate continuously. Every time Harry and friends win their enemy gets tougher. It's not till the end of the final book that a final victory occurs.

Let's talk about some compelling characters:

Harry Potter: He's an orphan. He's been, at the very least, mentally and emotionally abused by the Dursleys. He has to feel at least partially responsible for the deaths of his parents, who lost their lives defending him but he never gives up. Harry fights against a force that is bigger than him. No one would be able to blame him if he decided to pack it in and go home but he doesn't.

Looked at another way, he is the chosen one. He could easily let that go to his head and turn in to an arrogant snob but he doesn't. He's smart enough to know he needs help and brave enough to get the job done.

Hermione Granger: Raised by Muggles and starting off in a world like nothing she's ever seen before, Hermione thrives. Her amazing intellect and drive to excel push her toward greatness. Without Hermione, Harry fails. It's that simple. She even saves the day while petrified. But there's more to Hermione than just that.

Hermione is everything I teach my daughters to be. She is also a lot like my girlfriend. She is strong, proud, smart, tough and brave. I spend as much time rooting for Hermione as I do Harry. Plus she starts off the series as a nerd and that's something I can identify with. Oh and her drive to free the house elves amazes me. No one else even cared.

I'm intentionally omitting Ron as I see him as a cross between Samwise Gamgee and Carrot Top with a little bit of that fat kid from that one episode of Little House on the Prairie thrown in. He's a necessary character but not one of my favorites.

Speaking of Weasleys though, how about Molly? I love that Rowling cast her not just as the helpless housewife but as the mama bear. Molly is sweet as sugar until you endanger her family and then LOOK OUT. Her worst fear is something happening to her family as we see when she faces down a boggart. All this and she still manages to keep her whacky husband moving forward.

Even Tom Riddle, AKA Lord Voldemort, is a compelling character. He's a man who was mistreated as a child and now hates everybody like those who hurt him. He's mad for the power he needs to get back at them. No one likes this guy but his motivations make sense even if his methods are too extreme. He's sick and twisted yet we can see how he ended up that way. And despite all of that, Rowling makes us hate him enough that his death is a crowning achievement. I could go on for days.

It's also obvious to anyone that pays attention that Rowling has done her research. Almost all of the monsters come straight from mythology. The parallels between Nazi Germany and some of the actions taken by the Death Eaters are legion. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Triwizard Tournament was somehow inspired by the Labors of Hercules.

All of this adds up to one of the most amazing stories ever told. Rowling amazes me with what she managed to pack into those books. There are ups and downs. Nothing is ever quite what it seems. The books start off fairly laid back but by Deathly Hallows they're dark as all get out. No one and nothing is safe, even if we wish they were. It's a crazy world but it's entertaining. How entertaining you ask?

Rowling's books have sold hundred of millions of copies. She is considered to be the world's first billionaire author. All this because she created a story about a boy and his friends and refused to give up on it or herself. She submitted book one dozens of times before it was accepted and maybe that's
the biggest lesson of Harry Potter: The odds may be against you, but you should never give up. J.K. Rowling didn't. Harry Potter didn't. You shouldn't either and neither shall I.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Have you ever had a bad day? I'm talking about the kind of day where the best case scenario is that you've ruined your life for the next five years and the worst case scenario is that you end up dead or maimed? We're talking about the kind of day where you involuntarily leave behind the career you've spent years building because you got a little too drunk last night. Oh and, just to make it worse, you were promoted last night. I mean, I've had some bad days in my time but this might legitimately be the worst day in history. It's okay though. If Paul Mullins hadn't had the worst day ever then he wouldn't have joined the United States Foreign Legion and there would be no Legion by Leo Champion. That would make me sad because Legion is a really good book.

Our hero is Paul Mullins. After he somehow managed to get so drunk at his own promotion party that he ends up enlisting into the military without wanting to he struggles. His goal is initially to get out of a contract that he was tricked into signing by an unscrupulous recruiter. He eventually ends up just trying to keep himself and his buddies alive. At the beginning of the story he's not used to struggling. By the end it's all he knows.

I find myself liking Mullins. He's hardcore. He made a bad decision but he decides to roll with it. He does try to get out of his contract because he was tricked but he simultaneously pushes himself to be top in his class and survive. He works hard on missions that he never would have been on if he hadn't been tricked. Basically, Mullins finds himself in a situation where he would be perfectly justified in throwing a whiny bitch fit worthy of a Stephanie Meyers protagonist but he never does. I mean, if I ever accidentally joined a branch of the military and then found out my odds were what they are in the USFL I think I'd freak out. Mullins holds it together though.

Mullins matures a lot in other ways as well. At the beginning of the book he's some business guy with better things to do. By the end he has accepted responsibility for his entire unit and called in air and artillery strikes. He has been promoted to radio man, knowing and accepting the fact that his new assignment is even more dangerous than his old one. The only part he seems to worry about is that it'll get him shorten his hitch. He is promoted once and is being looked at for going further. He really seems to have it all put together by the end of Legion and I respect that,

The titular Legion is more properly known as the United States Foreign Legion. It's based on the model of the French Foreign Legion, which recruits anyone but mainly gets convicts and foreigners. French convicts are offered a chance at redemption in exchange for their service. I like the concept. As a matter of fact, offering a convicted felon a choice between imprisonment or service used to be fairly common in the real world US. (True story. My grandfather got arrested for running shine and was offered a choice between prison and the military. He chose prison, but not everyone did.) It has since been ruled unconstitutional by a partisan court. I wouldn't mind seeing the practice brought back though and Champion posits a very realistic way that it could return.

The USFL lives up to its reputation as a bunch of trouble-making convicts as well. Whether they're stealing equipment from the Army or participating in a brawl that is several blocks long, they're always up to no good. They loot places as well. It's weird though because on one hand they're thieves and brawlers but on the other hand, these are the guys who take on the toughest assignments and succeed.

The relationships between the characters in the book are amazingly well done. Not everyone gets along, but that's life in any large organization. They all manage to pull together when it's their asses on the line though. It just works. The NCOs are mean when they have to be and helpful when they can be. The officers (and one lieutenant in particular) give orders knowing that it's going to get their men killed and then agonize about it afterward. And yes, there is the inevitable shirtbird but that happens in every unit too. I'm not sure if Champion has served or not but his unit reads as true to life as it gets.

His use of tactics makes sense as well. The Legion gets all the most dangerous assignments and is not the most well equipped branch of service but they do things in an intelligent manner. There is no lone wolfing. The soldiers work together toward the goal and they have each others backs. They use suppressing fire and grenades when it makes sense to. Kudos to Champion for being the one guy who writes members of the military as having enough brains to fight well. They call for artillery and air support at the right times. They accept help from wherever they can get it when it's their asses on the line. Everything about the way they fight makes sense.

Fans of diversity done right will love this book. Legion is a good story featuring characters of color. The minority characters are believable and they serve a purpose in the story. There is mention of suffering due to racism but it's not the focus of the book. There is no navel gazing here. This is a book with plenty of action to keep things moving that includes minority characters who do things for their own reasons and not necessarily to follow bullshit rules as lain down by Social Justice Bully assholes.

All in all, I really enjoyed Legion. I couldn't find any real problems with it either. There was no jarring moment that threw me out of the work. It didn't shy away from the world's problems but it didn't focus on them to detriment of everything else. This thing just worked.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Have you ever sat in a cab at three in the morning with no fare in the back reading when you should have been taking a nap? Have you ever gotten home from a thirteen hour shift driving a cab knowing you only had five hours to sleep before you went back and did it all over again and sat starting at words on a cell phone screen anyway? If not I'm guessing that either:

First the disclaimer: This is the third book in a series. I think it would work pretty well as a stand-alone but I've read the first two. The reader may want to start with Darkship Thieves and Darkship Renegades. Then again, you don't really NEED to unless you're anal about reading a series in publication order like a certain blogger we all know and lone. *COUGH*

The story centers around Athena Hera Sinistra, daughter of Goodman Sinistra, ruler of one of the seacities in Hoyt's future Earth. Athena is an interesting character, possibly in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse. She was raised to be a body donor for her father. He did what he had to do to attempt to control her. It didn't work very well. I wouldn't want to be the guy who tried to control Thena. I guess that makes me smarter than him. Then again, Daddy Dearest was gene-engineered to be smarter than the rest of us, sooo... yup. Smarter than anyone who would try to control this chick. She's a little out there. But what do I mean by a littler out there? Either she is;

1.) Totally off her rocker (I don't believe this but she seems to.)
2.) A little "off" (Totally possible)
3.) A sociopath who somehow manages to care about her family, if not anyone else (I'm thinking no, but some of Thena's thoughts about herself seem to tend in this direction)
4.) A hardcore pragmatist who ignores humanistic concerns (This sort of works, but not really. She does act like her nuclear family and her in-laws. Also, her treatment of the boys in the story is both pragmatic and humanistic.)
or
5.) The only sane person left (This options scares the hell out of me. What she does works too well to be crazy, but if THIS is what sane looks like...)

Since Wonder Woman was my last review, let me say this as well: This is how you do an empowered female character. Thena is a take-no-prisoners, no-holds-barred type who sees what needs to be done and does it. She won't take know for an answer and she survives things that would kill most people. Thena doesn't give up when she has a goal in mind, ever. She has the protective instinct in spades and she cannot be stopped when it comes to defending her own.

Thena has a child in the first few pages of the book and, while she doesn't think she will make a good mother, she actually does in her own fashion. I mean, I'm not sure that having an infant strapped to your chest during a firefight is all that great of an idea even if you can't find a babysitter but Thena manages to do it without getting either one of them killed so... It's all good... I guess? Right?

The supporting cast is also impressive. Thena's husband Kit lives and breathes as much as if he were sitting next to you on the couch. The kids Thena and company end up saving come across as true to life as well. I started out wanting to hate these kids but the time the story was over I wanted to adopt one. (I'll admit that it didn't hurt that they had named themselves after famous fictional characters. OK, so maybe I'm a little testy about a story that includes a Christopher Robin but no Tigger but I'll get over it.) Nat, Luce, Simon all seem real. I could almost feel the stress these guys were going through myself.

The story itself has a relentless pace. I've heard it said that if an author feels their story becoming boring they should drop a mountain on their characters. Well, I'm guessing that Hoyt believes in pre-emptive strikes and that the Himalayas are missing a few peaks, because the hits keep coming and the action doesn't stop.

Part of why I like this story is because I love a good villain and Hoyt's Good Men are the type of person I can totally love to hate. Anyone who would send down a plague to wipe out most of humanity in order to enslave the leftovers is worth killing. What they do to the children in their care is quite frankly disgusting as well. Hoyt has obviously taken great care in gifting us with people we can root against. She's done a damn fine job. It's not often that an author can make me hate a group of characters badly enough to want to choke them all to death but Hoyt manages it with aplomb.

The technology in Darkship Revenge is either really cool or horrifying. Gene-engineered space plants that grow power pods that you can run a city with are sweet. Characters fly around on anti-gravity powered brooms. Flying cars are everywhere. And of course, the plio revolves around defeating a biological weapon that is devastating.

There is one facet of Darkship Revenge that drives me batshit insane. Hoyt's characters shoot at each other with weapons called burners. They're kind of a cross between a phaser pistol and a welding torch. In and of itself that's okay. The problem emerges with the unbelievable shooting skill her characters display under pressure. I mean, the miracle head shots displayed in The Walking Dead make me crazy but what these characters do with burners is at least an order of magnitude more difficult. That being said, it's called The Rule of Cool for a reason. All in all though, this book kicked ass.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

A question I get asked a lot from
reviewers of For Steam And Country is: Is it weird to write from a
first person perspective of a sixteen year old girl?

The answer is yes. It took me several
passes to actually dial in what Zaira Von Monocle’s perspective
would be, and I had to work extremely hard to get her to the point
where she’s the fun character in For Steam And Country that my
advance readers tell me they love.

I’m going to give a little peek
behind the curtain as to my learning as a writer, and my process as I
came up with all of this, in hopes that it is both interesting to
readers, and potentially helpful to newer writers.

When I first conceived the novel, I
knew that I wanted to write a Steampunk fantasy, to create a fantasy
world of kingdoms and airships, alchemy and swashbuckling, high
adventure that most books in the steampunk genre had shied away from.
Most books in the genre either went going something darker and
grittier, or dipping further into romance. I also wanted to make it
somewhat YA (I consider the finished product a tweener between YA and
regular fantasy, though it’s perfectly suitable for all ages),
which I thought would allow me to take a lighter tone.

YA fantasy novels take the first person
perspective more often than not, allowing for a real sense of feeling
like you’re inside the head of the protagonist, or at the very
least sitting across from them while you take high tea. A recent
trend has them in first person present, which makes people really
feel in the action, but I didn’t want to go that far, as it’s
very few and far between I read a book in the present tense that
doesn’t annoy me.

I actually had this plan to write in
the first person perspective from the onset, getting to worldbuilding
and character creating. In keeping with YA, I wanted to keep the
protagonist young, and also to the market, having a female
perspective seemed the way to go. I looked at the idea and thought,
“wow, do I really want to write a 16 year old girl in the first
person?” It sounded pretty daunting, and like it required a lot of
work to keep realistic. Once I looked at the job from that
perspective, I viewed it as a writing challenge to myself.

Very little gets me motivated like a
challenge, competition, even if it’s something as small as posing
the question to myself if I could pull something off. In fact, a lot
of my best work comes out of such challenges. It sounds silly, but in
writing, self-motivation is about the most important skill you can
learn. It’s hard to go through scenes, especially some of the
heavier ones, and it’s much harder to edit. If you have other goals
that trick yourself into feeling like a game, then you’ll more
often than not breeze through something that seemed at first like a
chore.

And this turned out hard to do, not in
the sense of it took me a long time to write--I actually had so much
fun with this world and with these characters that I breezed through
my first draft-- but when I went through it the first time, the
character didn’t come across as a good protagonist at all.

In my figuring this out, I observed
teenagers, and tried to remember what it was like to be a teenager
myself. Frankly, I found teenagers to be a bit rambunctious, acting
without thinking, and extremely low in self-confidence (for the most
part, there’s always exceptions). And I wrote my character as such.
In my early submissions drafts that I sent out to agents and
editors, the character whined a LOT. She was combative, teasing her
love interest a bit too hard. Honestly, it felt very realistic to me
from what I’ve seen of a lot of teenagers, but those behaviors
grate on a reader if they’re too pronounced, and I found that many
of the editors didn’t connect with the character because of that.

I later learned the value of connection
over realism in writing, something I wish I would have learned a lot
easier and sooner. Readers want to see some flaws, some mistakes, but
they don’t want that to be overwhelming, don’t want to find a
person annoying. And in a heroic adventure, some of those life quirks
need to be toned down rather than be presented as too realistic.

I let the book sit for awhile, wrote
Star Realms: Rescue Run, and released that to quite a bit of
fanfare. When I looked at this novel again, I saw it was close, but I
needed to push that perspective character to the next level. I
thought of who this character was, and how it would have shaped her
so she’s different than just a normal teenager. Zaira’s lived
mostly abandoned, on her own except when the neighbors checked in on
her. She’s had to work for herself, farm for herself, wash her own
clothes, cook her own meals for a couple of years now. That’s a
pretty hard life to have 14-16, and one that requires a lot of work.
As such, she’d be tougher. The whining had to go. She’d also have
a very strong sense that she could do anything herself, including
going in and doing things like flying an airship (minor spoiler, but
I think you probably figured out that airship flying occurs by this
point!). That has negative effects like stubbornness, which provide
for some good conflict that a reader can relate to more. With those
major facets of her personality in mind, I rewrote the book. And this
time, everything clicked.

Even though there were heavy rewrites,
I flew through this last pass because I made a character that was
compelling and fun for me. And that’s what it takes to make
something compelling and fun for a reader.

Authors often strive too hard for
realism, to the point where it makes a lot of works bland and boring.
Something that we can’t connect with because we’re not wishing we
were in that person’s movie. And that’s what the author has to
create. We as readers want people to rise up and be heroes, to meet
challenges, to exceed expectations. That’s why we escape into
fantasy in the first place. Realizing that changed my world, making
Zaira Von Monocle into the farm girl-turned-hero that she ended up
being in For Steam And Country. She’s still got her inexperience,
but her wide-eyed sense of wonder and being willing to take on big
challenges makes her a fun protagonist. I hope you enjoy reading
about her as much as I enjoyed writing her.

Jon
Del Arroz is the author of the Alliance Award nominated and top-10
Amazon bestselling Space Opera, "Star Realms: Rescue Run."
His second novel, "For
Steam And Country,"
is just out. He hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, is a guest
contributor to the Hugo Award-nominated Castalia House blog, and
regularly posts to http://delarroz.com. Twitter: @jondelarroz Gab.ai:
@otomo

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

(*SIGH* Before I get into the fun part, especially with this being a DC Comics related post, I have to share my thoughts on the passing of Adam West. I want to cry. I've been a fan of his since before I can remember. One of the local independent TV stations used to carry Batman episodes back to back on weekends. I've always loved them. So Godspeed Adam West. That's another piece of my childhood gone.)

(I got to go with my kiddos! Check us out in our 3D glasses!)

For the longest time I've been a DC movie hater. Seriously. I'm guilty. I will admit to a bit of an obsession with Wonder Woman though. I watched the live action TV series in re-runs as a kid. I loved the Super Friends/ Justice League cartoon. I haven't watched a Batman movie since the Clinton Administration. I'm a blatant Green Lantern fanboy but I was disappointed by the GL movie. For whatever reason, though they go this one right. And not just a little right. Wonder Woman was everything I wanted the GL movie to be and more.

I'll be honest in stating that I was a bit disappointed that the movie was set in World War One as opposed to World War Two, when Wonder Woman's birth took place in the comics. I'm not a true hardcore purist but I do have enough purist tendencies that I was bit annoyed with such a massive change in timing. That lasted about ten minutes into the movie. I don't want to give too many spoilers but the story just worked.

Wonder Woman has always been a story with one half based on Greek myth and the other based on the real world. The movie exemplified that. When you've got an invasion of the island of Themyscira by the German army (the World War I version, not the Nazis) it can't be anything else. German troops are from the real world. Themyscira is from myth. Poison gas is (horrifyingly) from the real world. Ares, God of War, is from Greek Myth. I could go on. There is a point here though:

The Wonder Woman mythos has always depended on the ability of the writer to blend the two worlds well and here they've done it flawlessly. The blend is seamless. I'd say they transition back and forth well, but the bottom line is that there is no need for the TO transition. They two are straight up blended. The writers did a wonderful job with this script. There are no two ways about it.

Oh, and another thing: If Wonder Woman doesn't win the Oscar for best special effects someone needs their ass kicked. Someone as in, like, the entire Academy. If there is a problem finding someone to do it, I will volunteer as tribute. Everything about this film looks gorgeous, from the Lasso of Truth, to the explosions, to the poison gas, the costuming, everything. The fight between Diana and her target is epic. I hate to say it, but I'm almost wondering if they stole some people from Marvel because this movie is beautiful.

Of course the true key to any adaptation of Wonder Woman is the title character herself and Gal Gadot knocks it out of the park. She is Diana, Princess of Themyscira. She has the look and the personality just right. The only actor I've ever seen play a super hero this well previously is Robert Downey Jr. Yup, you heard it hear first: Gadot plays Wonder Woman as a well as Downey plays Tony Stark. Coming from me, that's high praise indeed.

Granted, Diana grew up on an island where she was the only child and there were no men. She does not have a working knowledge of modern society because she didn't grow up in it. The first time she sees a baby she marks out but it all makes sense. She wasn't raised in a normal environment and so she isn't used to normal things. Gadot plays this part of her character to a t and I'm wondering how she did it.

Of course, a good Steve Trevor always helps as well and Chris Pine nails it. He plays the perfect soldier: The mission means everything. All else is secondary. He falls in love with Diana and makes you believe it. He's got the cocky thing down (and Trevor is both a pilot and a spy, therefore making him cocky as hell) but he's level headed enough to wish he didn't have to fight and he makes you believe all of it. Very few actors will ever fit into a role they way Gadot does in this one, but he comes close.

Any story is improved with a good villain and Wonder Woman delivers those in spades. Whether it's Ares, Greek God of War, a German general who wants the war to continue, to the evil Dr. Maru inventor of a horrifying chemical weapon that can destroy gas masks (and also a woman with a career in STEM) there are plenty of people to root against. It's always good to see the protagonist win, but it's even better when you want to see the bad guys lose. Oh, and speaking of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics:

I've heard a lot of debate about whether or not Wonder Woman is a feminist movie. Consider the following quote:

"You are stronger than you believe and more powerful than you know" - Antiope to a young Diana Prince

Consider the fact that Diana does things her way, places her mission over the mission of the men she is with (albeit while ultimately believing that her mission is more important and will complete the mens mission for them.) and completes it by defeating a man. Consider the fact that she is expected to fail and succeeds anyway. This is a woman who takes her own counsel, who does not back down when confronted by anything and who does not let anything deter her from her path. Diana is a woman who kills a Greek god using only her own innate power. In short, this is a feminist film.

Yes, I've heard the complaints that Wonder Woman is not a true feminist because she is a straight white woman and in good shape, but check facts: It is not necessary to be a fat lesbian person of color to be a feminist. I'm not generally a fan of expecting kids to find their role models in the entertainment industry, but if my girls go that route I want them to watch this movie and see something to emulate. Yes, this is the message I want all young girls everywhere to hear: You can be what you want, do what you want and achieve anything with or without a man.

It's worth noting that both of my daughters loved this movie so much that they thanked me for taking them when we went on Saturday, then again when I saw them on Sunday and again when I saw them today. My youngest was a bit scared of the poison gas scenes (Honestly, so was I. I've read about what that crap can do.) and even the older of the two called them "creepy". They're both kind of right but this movie wouldn't work if it was all wine and roses.

My only complaint her is kind of lame, but I'm going to put it out there anyway. This is an awesome film. It needs a sequel. I'm not sure where they left room for one though. The main villain is deader than disco. His two accomplices have been wiped out. There is no unfinished business. Dammit, I want another Wonder Woman movie. DC better figure this out and get me one. You finally got one right DC. Follow up. And for the sake of all of your fans PLEASE use the same writer and director. You can still screw the next one up. I would prefer if you didn't.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Bullet Proof Bracelets

Wonder Woman
DC Entertainment, 2017

Some Wonder Woman related merchandise is available at the links below:

Thursday, June 1, 2017

What happens when humanity becomes confident that they're the only species in space and gets comfortable? What happens when no one plans for conflict with an alien race? How about if humanity is so worried about border skirmishes with other Earth nations that they're not looking outward for trouble? Well, if they're in Christopher Nutall's Ark Royal they start off getting their asses kicked. It makes sense.

Ark Royal features a few classic tropes that just make my day. The first and most obvious is old-ship-comes-out-of-mothballs-to-kick-ass. I like this trope, but Nutall does it better than most, simply by providing a reason that the Ark Royal is able to light it up. Simply put the Ark Royal is armored. The new ships are not. The older ship can take a beating that would leave nothing of the newer ships but a debris pile. I like the trope and it's even better when it makes sense. Nutall got this one straight as well.

Ark Royal is a tale of redemption not just for the ship but for her crew and her captain. The vast majority of the crew was stationed on the ship because they were problems. Commodore Sir Theodore Smith is the captain of the ship... but he should have been cashiered because of his drinking problem. He starts off the book hung over and craving another drink. He manages to bring himself back from the abyss though. The whole crew does.

In a weird sort of way (and I'm not sure if Nutall intended this or not) the redemption of the crew is also the redemption of humanity. The human race has become complacent. It has done nothing to protect itself from outside attack. Humanity has not armored its carriers. It has no workable plans in place to protect itself from attack and no one trained to handle a peaceful first contact. Yet, when the Ark Royal's crew gets itself together, things get better for the Earth. The first victories against the aliens are led by a recovering alcoholic and his misfit crew.

It's odd too that the Ark Royal is a ship of the British Royal Navy but is put together from parts of only God and her captain know how many various nations. Honestly, I'd almost bet that the captain would have to sit down and count. This reflects the fact that all nations of the Earth are going to need to work together to repel the alien threat. Again, I'm not sure if Nutall meant it this way or not but the ship again takes on the mantle of the entire human race. The juxtaposition is a fascinating aspect of the story. I'm just not sure it was intended.

Nutall's alien invaders are mysteries throughout this first book. I like this approach. The humans know nothing about their enemies. They just know that these things showed up and started killing people. They're not even sure why or what the enemy wants. They work out how to fight them based on trial and error. It's all they can do. I am often a fan of the reader knowing things that the protagonist does not but this time I think Nutall has done the right thing.

Now, I will grant that there are eight books that follow this one (Ark Royalis the first in the series) and at some point I hope that Nutall makes more of the alien thought process known to his readers. That only makes sense. In an ongoing series more will most likely be revealed. I just started this series though, so I can't comment on whether or how it happens.

The combat scenes in the book work well. It helps that the aliens aren't stupid. The Ark Royal has a weapon that the ships they've fought previously have already abandoned and it catches them flat-footed.It makes sense in the context of the story. Just as important though, is the fact that the aliens respond and find an intelligent way to fight back. This leads humanity to adjust their tactics... and so on. This is how wars actually work in the real world though, so that makes sense. Both sides use whatever information they can find about the other side against them.

Commodore Smith's superiors don't trust him as much as he would probably like and that makes sense too. He is a known alcoholic. It's interesting though, to see how the loyalty of the people under his command shines through when they're asked to spy on him. It's twice as interesting to watch how the perceptions of one particular character change over the course of the book. Nutall does a good job showing the interlocking and sometimes conflicting duties and loyalties of a member of the military. Loyalty is key but it's not always clear which loyalty is more important. Nutall shows this clearly and his characters agonize. It fits. The battles with family/marital loyalty make sense as well. He even teases a problem with for the next book. I'm betting dollars to doughnuts that I've figured out at least part of it, but I could be wrong. I haven't bought it yet. (Sorry, Mr. Nutall. Rent was due.)

Smith and crew are hardcore and resilient. They think outside of the box. In short, they're precisely what they need to be to defeat a force that superior in both technology and numbers. It's often a close run thing but they fight and/or find a way through. Their missions turn out at least marginally successful because they refuse for them not to. This is a crew you can really admire. I'd go to war with them.

I'm trying to find something to complain about and it's just not working. I'm not going to say that this is a perfect work of Science Fiction but there are no MAJOR flaws that I could detect.I was never thrown from the story. The only characters I found annoying were the ones that were supposed to be annoying. I'm no expert on the tactics of space combat but everything in the book made sense from a fan's point of view.

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All submissions must be in .epub or .pdf format as I read on my Nook and it accepts those formats. Only novella length or better works will be reviewed. All entries must be in the science fiction or fantasy genres. All submissions should be formatted in exactly the way they will be (or have been) released. Any exceptions to any of these rules will be deleted without reading. Please send any and all materials to thatjimboguy@gmail.com.